Episode 271 with Joseph Lombardi : Empowering Financial Strategies for Small Business Owners

Welcome to another episode of the ReadyYet Podcast! Today, I'm joined by Joseph Lombardi, owner and founder of Ironhawk Financial. With over two decades in the financial industry, multiple awards, and notable publications under his belt, Joseph brings a wealth of knowledge to our discussion. We delve into the transformative power of financial education, the hidden strategies of the wealthy, and the importance of living intentionally. From the pitfalls of traditional retirement accounts to the impact of everyday financial decisions, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you take control of your financial future. Plus, Joseph shares his personal journey of overcoming vices and finding purpose. 

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https://ironhawkfinancial.com

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/money-talk-with-ironhawk/id1749828543 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-lombardi-ironhawk 

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Transcript

Episode 271 with Joseph Lombardi : Empowering Financial Strategies for Small Business Owners

Transcribed by Descript 

Erin Marcus: Oh, welcome, welcome to this episode of the ReadyYet podcast. This could have been two episodes because Joseph and I have been chatting for 20 minutes about the craziness that we see out in the world. So before we get into it, tell everybody a little bit officially who you are and what you do. 

Joseph Lombardi: First of all, thank you for having me on the show, Aaron. So I'm Joseph Lombardi. I'm the owner and founder of Ironhawk Financial. I've been in business for 21 years. I won 27 industry awards and have featured in major publications like International Business Times, Business Insider, Market Insider, The Daily Caller.

Joseph Lombardi: I was on the cover of many magazines, The Who's Who of Building Construction, The Top 40 Advisors in the Country. I'm a published author. I've written three books that are all available on Amazon Kindle, Being Your Own Bank, There's a Better Way Than a 401k, Long Term Care Without Long Term Pains.

Joseph Lombardi: I also have my own radio show, Money Talk With Ironhawk, every Tuesday, 7 p. m. Eastern. on all Apple products, Spotify, CarPlay, Podcast Nation, globally actually. And I'm five star rated on Google, A plus rated on the Better Business Bureau, at thousands of clients and billions of dollars in protection, and I could keep going, but I think that's more than enough.

Joseph Lombardi: I 

Erin Marcus: think that, so it's all suffices to say you know What you're talking about this is not so you've already passed my litmus test of people who talk about something and that they've never done, but this is why I'm so excited to continue our conversation and share this with people. I come out of financial services.

Erin Marcus: That was my big fancy corporate job before I just couldn't do it anymore. My fancy title was senior vice president of business development for the largest long term care insurance wholesaler in the country. What that did was it got me into a lot of rooms way above my pay grade and I got to meet a lot of amazing people.

Erin Marcus: And what I saw, and this is where I want to kick this off with you, is that the difference between people who have money and the difference between don't have money is information. Because the products are accessible. If not just where to look, but most people wouldn't even think that it's out there.

Joseph Lombardi: I agree with you one million percent. I started my journey working at a small Northwestern Mutual 

Erin Marcus: They were one of my clients. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah, but then I was at MetLife, and then I went to Guardian, and MassMutual, and started my own business and I took a little bit of what I learned from all these major carriers.

Joseph Lombardi: And I agree with you. I realized a lot of people don't know this exists and that's all by design, if you really think about it. When's the last time you've ever seen or heard a financial commercial about a strategy or a product? Never. It's illegal, by 

Erin Marcus: the way people and I said this to you before, I don't know if it's age, I don't, been around long enough.

Erin Marcus: I grew up in Chicago. So the dirty underbelly of how things work was never a secret. But I don't think people realize that it is illegal to advertise half of what you would want to know about financial services. You can't say it. 

Joseph Lombardi: Nope. No it's barred and it's barred because IRAs, 401Ks, SEPs, simple pension, deferred comp, 457s, profit sharings, those are all in collusion between Wall Street and the government and they want you in those accounts because A, it's illiquid, B, it's high feed, C, you're handcuffing your money for decades and decades.

Erin Marcus: And meanwhile, they're borrowing it for pennies on the dollar while you're sitting getting nothing out of it. 

Joseph Lombardi: Are you going to sell when the market's up 20 percent and banks are lending at 0 percent interest rates?

Joseph Lombardi: No, you're going to hold it until the market crashes, you lose your job. And then you're going to get nervous 

Erin Marcus: because you're a human. 

Joseph Lombardi: And then you're going to sell, you're going to buy high, sell low, and then you're going to dollar cost average your way in every week or month into the market, which is like the worst thing you can do.

Joseph Lombardi: I need, 

Erin Marcus: I don't know that you know the answer to this. Maybe we do know the answer to this. Why? I. Like I understand with everything going on right now, and it, it just happens to be a day where some things happened yesterday that came through with the Supreme Court while we're recording this, and the political, the election and the debate was something What last week I didn't even watch it.

Erin Marcus: Like I did laugh at a lot of the best tweets that came out 

Joseph Lombardi: There 

Erin Marcus: are some really funny people out in this world. But we're all waiting right? This whole country is waiting on baited breath for something to happen instead of just doing what they need to do for themselves. 

Joseph Lombardi: 100%. 100%. We are all equal under God.

Joseph Lombardi: There shouldn't be a government, to be honest, because that gives power to other equal people under God to tell us what we can and can't do. So if you really understand it, you have one shot on this earth to do what you need and want to do and, Your biggest commodity is not money. It's time 

Erin Marcus: time.

Erin Marcus: What is that goes by so fast? Wait, what is that phrase act as if? Money were temp work. We act as if money is temporary and time is permanent. And it's really the other way around that money is permanent and time is temporary. 

Joseph Lombardi: 100%. And that's why we live in the United States of America corporation. 

Joseph Lombardi: Cause if you add up federal tax, state tax, FICA, Medicare, unemployment, social security, sales, property. Gas, tobacco, alcohol there's 16 of them. Luxury cars. Yeah, we work from January all the way to August. Before a rain. 

Erin Marcus: Here's the thing yes and no, because I do feel when the firemen rush towards my burning house instead of away from it, we're not, it's not completely free.

Erin Marcus: There are a few systems here, That do work. And to me, firemen is always the first they run towards the problem, right? Let's pay them what they need. Education isn't really serving anybody. You could, it used to be a thing. It's not really working the way it used to. But if you look at isn't it the Scandinavian countries, they say pay so much more in taxes, but because the services that they receive are so good, nobody's unhappy about it.

Joseph Lombardi: Correct. And with us as Americans, we're not getting anything. We're not, except 

Erin Marcus: for the firemen and the policemen 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah. I gotcha. So yeah, we get something. But the value, we pay the social security, but if you just took those dollars and just like 

Erin Marcus: never 

Joseph Lombardi: Apple stock or something, you'd have eight times the amount of money, which means they're stealing that from us, but nobody does the math to figure it out.

Joseph Lombardi: But yeah, so it's, we're in a system that is designed to steal our time and our attention. And to keep us occupied so that the powers that be can run the entire country the way they want. They told us aliens are real, but then they tell us for decades they weren't. So they know they're 70, 80 years ahead of us.

Joseph Lombardi: Think of 1940. That's where we are to them right now. So it's they want to keep us in the shadows. They go to war in Iran, not because they care about oil, but because all the political texts, all the different archives that were rated, that they took back, they know the power and they lie to us constantly about everything.

Erin Marcus: And so you're saying not being in debt, and one of the things I want to point out that you're not saying is you don't get to go do anything.

Erin Marcus: We're not talking about living a life of poverty so that you have to do that. That is not what, that is not what you mean. 

Joseph Lombardi: No, what I mean is, if I have clients That make 40 to 50, 000 each. So they're living on, let's say 90, 000 a year. They're millionaires. I have clients who make 750, 000 a year and their network is negative.

Joseph Lombardi: So it does what people don't understand is it doesn't matter what the gift that God gives you. It's what you do with that gift. And when I say that gift, monetary value, which is the transaction of your time converted into monetary value. So if you are taking that time that God gave you because God gave you your time, you decide to change that God time into a US currency, a dollar.

Joseph Lombardi: That's your time. And when you're blowing it recklessly on Uber Eats and vacations and scrolling at, 10 o'clock at night and I'll click that, I'll click that, I'll buy that. I don't need it. I don't want it. I'm just bored. What you're doing is you're robbing yourself of the gift that God gave you that you could have spent those dollars to help your future self, right?

Joseph Lombardi: Because we have a past self, a present self, and a future self. And if you don't spend the time and energy to protect your future self, nobody's going to do it. Nobody 

Erin Marcus: will. And one of the things that I've learned and become very aware of is that so much of the mindless spending, and we're going to get way conspiracy theorists and people are going to think I'm nuts, but it's part of a pattern to pacify myself.

Erin Marcus: It's to it's I think the meme that I found last December was, are you relaxing or are you shutting down and disassociating.

Erin Marcus: And so how much of what we are doing with our money. Is a version of disassociating from the anxiety from I haven't turned my television on in about four months. I had friends, I had two friends, like one, somebody who had popped in my head this morning, so I texted her, I'm like, oh my god, how are you?

Erin Marcus: And she went on a rant about after what happened yesterday, I had to go look up what happened yesterday. But I have never felt more

Erin Marcus: sad. about the state of things, and at the same time, completely disassociated from it. Like it is nothing, I don't have kids, so I think that's one thing, I'm not, I don't, I'm not directly worried about the world they're gonna grow up in, so that's a, an alleviation there, but what you're talking about is so in alignment with living my life of intention, and you're about that there is additional tools.

Erin Marcus: That you don't even realize are available to you to be more in control of your own world. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah. When 1000% just to touch on the anxiety thing that what I've learned is that if you live in the past, you're living in depression. If you're living in the future, you're living in anxiety. And when you live in the present, which is very hard to do, that's where you're at peace with yourself.

Joseph Lombardi: And it's and to reiterate what you just said in regards to the tools. There's the easiest way to explain it because I can go depth where I'll be speaking almost Chinese to your listeners They won't understand much Is it comes down to the 2016 debate? Believe it or not. We're back in politics, right?

Joseph Lombardi: We have Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump Hillary tells Donald Trump You pay no taxes and that makes you bad and Donald Trump said that doesn't make me bad. That makes me smart I use the same IRS codes that your donors use You And you had the chance for 30 years to close those loopholes and you decided not to.

Joseph Lombardi: That's what I run my business on. I use that code, what the code they're talking about, which your listeners can easily Google, is called IRS code 7702. So what my clients do, I have thousands of them across the world, Is they use that IRS code just like Donald Trump does and Hillary and all are all the wealthy people one 

Erin Marcus: percenters, right?

Joseph Lombardi: The 001 percenters believe it or not. Because you're talking about a trillion dollar industry that is a mainstream. Maybe another trillion dollar industry the average American don't know about Trillion, trillion with a T. That's filling up every football field and baseball field in the country with a hundred dollar bills at the top.

Joseph Lombardi: If you understand that this is a trillion dollar industry and the average person doesn't know it exists, that's what I bring to the average person. I have clients who, yes, they do 50 million a year. I have clients who do 500 a month.

Joseph Lombardi: They use the same code and not to overwhelm again, your listeners. The way I like to explain it very simply is we all know who Elon Musk is, right? Why doesn't he pay a lot of tax? Because what he does is he takes his Tesla stock. Let's say he needs a hundred million dollars for a space X rocket.

Joseph Lombardi: Us Americans would do is we would sell our Tesla position of 200 million, give the government a hundred million to net the a hundred million we need to buy the rocket. So it actually costs 200 million for that a hundred million dollar rocket. He doesn't do that. He leans or loans a lean against his Tesla stock.

Joseph Lombardi: So he still owns his Tesla stock. He didn't sell it. He didn't give the government half and lose his growth on it for the next 30, 40 years. He's still earning interest on it, even though he's leaning in. He leans his Tesla stock for a hundred million while starting interest on it, takes that to buy the rocket.

Joseph Lombardi: And because it's a loan or a lien, it's a legally tax break. And that's what my clients do on a smaller scale is they invest in this strategy. There's no 59 10 percent penalty, no federal tax, no state tax. It's Sue proof. It's divorce proof in some States. It cannot lose because it uses option contracts similar to how billionaires use derivatives.

Joseph Lombardi: It's the same strategy there. And the thing's been averaging almost 15%, 14. 92 tax free compounded over the last 20 years. Has your retirement done that? No, first of all, your retirement is taxable. Second of all, I'd be lucky to average five taxable, which is like 3%. And these guys are averaging 14. 92.

Erin Marcus: So why don't more people do it? 

Joseph Lombardi: Because the average American can't even afford a new set of tires if they needed to pay for them and catch tomorrow over 50 percent closer to 70 percent of Americans can't afford. a new set of tires tomorrow if they had to pay cash. So how are they going to be able to put away 500 a month, 200 a month, 10, 000 a year when the average American's net worth And it's worse, right?

Erin Marcus: It's getting worse because look at what these kids are up against. 

Joseph Lombardi: They're squishing the middle class. 

Erin Marcus: Right? There's no way. They're not they can't afford housing. There's no way for them to launch. It's 

Joseph Lombardi: worse than the Great Depression when you take a look at what the income is and what the cost of the set asset is, whether it's a house, a car, a business, the cost of the asset, even though we're making more money.

Joseph Lombardi: What did our grandparents buy their first house for? 

Erin Marcus: My mom bought, now I don't know about my grandparents but I'm older than you, so by almost enough where my parents are your grandparents not quite enough. I could have been your mother, I would have, there would have been a bit of, A bit on MTV.

Erin Marcus: I would have been on MTV, but it's, Patent Pregnant. It is 24 now, and we do know we're gonna go down that route. It's like I got 15 years on ya. What did I did run into somebody, this was decades ago, some guy asked me literally if I wanted to make out with him. I think I was 30 at a Janet Jackson concert, and he was, Clearly a teenager and my girlfriend looked at him and said she's old enough to be your mother from an inner city school and I go and I went to an inner city school.

Erin Marcus: But one of the things I'm curious about, because I've been around now long enough to watch this ebb and flow, and I've seen as an adult in the workplace, I have been through three different recessions and two or three booms.

Erin Marcus: Where is this headed? Because to me it just rocks back and forth. It swings a little far, it swings a little narrow, but it just swings. And to me that's like more to do with natural law than any, that's a law ebb and flow, that's like just how the world works. 

Joseph Lombardi: What, in my opinion, what I think is going to happen is, I think they're going to allow Donald Trump to win the election, so I don't think their elections are fair anymore, but we don't put it on the table.

Joseph Lombardi: Oh 

Erin Marcus: no, it's been so long since that. And your local election, by the way, like before you think either you or I are like doom and gloom, get involved in your local stuff. That's where, that affects your life. 

Joseph Lombardi: That's your community. That's your town election, your school board. 

Erin Marcus: Get involved there. 

Joseph Lombardi: I agree. Don't try and be national because that's already been bought and sold decades ago.

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah, I agree. I think that is important. A beautiful bit of advice is if you feel a certain way you have a certain belief system 

Erin Marcus: in your world 

Joseph Lombardi: What basically what I think is going to happen is the Trump's going to win the election, which I believe sorry break believe it is what it is.

Joseph Lombardi: And I think they're going to then. Put Trump in and crashed the economy. And just like they had the death toll when Trump was president. And as soon as Biden was president, that death toll just magically disappeared on CNN and MSNBC. It was there on Monday and then like Biden's in there. Oh God, we don't have a death toll anymore.

Joseph Lombardi: Nobody died. No, COVID's great. So I think they're going to do the same thing, but not with killing people, but it's still going to kill people because money's going to starve people to death, but they're going to do the same thing instead of some crazy, some guy in a bat head Wuhan lab, excuse me.

Joseph Lombardi: Oh, did I say something? So what do you say, Dr. Fauci? Oh, nevermind. So I think they're going to do the same thing, have their Dr. Fauci of finance come in and say this economy never would have happened as far, Biden was still president. And they're going to try and cripple Trump because they don't care about Trump.

Joseph Lombardi: Trump's not the problem. The movement is the problem. People waking up, people realizing what's going on, TikTok. Why are they attacking TikTok so much? Wait, out of everything? Chinese spies? No. They give you real information there. I advise every listener here to download TikTok. And no, I'm not a Chinese spy.

Joseph Lombardi: You have to figure out what the heck's going on. It's the last bit. Of unregulated information. Yes, there's quacks there, but go to X. There's quacks everywhere. There's quacks everywhere. 

Erin Marcus: And to my point about getting involved Again, I have never felt more unrelated to what's going on in politics.

Erin Marcus: And I'm a journalism major, like I was reading, stay informed. And now it feels so irrelevant. But that being said, how does somebody and even with the ebb and flow, I think what people need to realize is Even with the ebb and flow, the things that don't ebb, are the tools that they're using.

Erin Marcus: The people in power, the people with money, if they're using, use the tools that they're using, they will protect those with their lives. 

Joseph Lombardi: Oh, 1000%. Yeah, and that's, they don't, the government doesn't care about you, unfortunately. I don't want to say anything to hurt people's feelings because, but 

Joseph Lombardi: they don't care about us. 

Erin Marcus: Wait, that's why it's stay local. That's what matters. Yeah, I 

Joseph Lombardi: mean, they make you smart enough to get a job to pay taxes and dumb enough to realize that they own you. And it's all done by design. And so the, like I tell everybody, Get a budget, tell people what they want to do.

Joseph Lombardi: We live in an instant gratification debt society. They're giving quarter million dollar loans to 18 year olds who can't even tie their shoes to go to college. I remember when 

Erin Marcus: I was 18 in 1988 and I got a credit card at the student center because I wanted the dictionary and thesaurus that they were giving away.

Erin Marcus: And they called my mother and my, I had a job. They called my job. I worked for my cousin. He called my mother. So I think it was And now it's 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah, it's like you had to give blood and go through 15 different steps to get a credit card. Now they're handing them out like 

Erin Marcus: For 500, right? For 500. Yeah, you can go to 

Joseph Lombardi: any department store, they're like, can you spell Nike?

Joseph Lombardi: They're like N O And 

Erin Marcus: we learned nothing. 

Joseph Lombardi: Here's 500. 

Erin Marcus: We learned nothing. One of the actuaries I used to work with John Hancock, he's the one who said this to me, when the crash of 08 happened, they were predicting it, they were going to their Society of Actuaries meetings and literally placing bets to see who would be there next year.

Erin Marcus: They saw this coming. They knew that was coming. And he said the, if you want to look at what is The American superpower is finding the loophole. The American superpower is finding the loophole. 

Joseph Lombardi: I call it black, white, and gray. That's what I call it. So black, you're going to jail.

Joseph Lombardi: White, you're getting f'd. Gray, you're saving a couple bucks. That's pretty much how I run my life. 

Erin Marcus: And everything you're watching, and everything you're watching people get convicted of is things people, all people do. All of that group does. And just every so often they, 

Joseph Lombardi: You're talking about, not to get too crazy, but the average American does something wrong.

Joseph Lombardi: They go to jail for jaywalking. These multi billionaires run islands, who are pedophiles, they literally rob people's pensions, and cripple people's lives, and hundreds of thousands of people die when these pensions go under because they don't have money for health care, they can't get to the hospital, they can't take their medication, and they're like, okay, you get to go to country club for five years or play some tennis.

Joseph Lombardi: And 

Erin Marcus: this is, and I'm not, and I don't have these conversations to rile people up. My goal with this is actually the opposite. My goal with this conversation is to not rile you up, it's to show that It's not worth your energy to get riled up. 

Joseph Lombardi: Correct. 

Erin Marcus: Because I'm not saying you shouldn't protest when you see something you don't agree with.

Erin Marcus: I'm not saying you shouldn't vote. I'm not saying any of those things. But to, when you watch how derailed people are for days and weeks and months at a time, because of the constant onslaught of the doom and gloom that we are Fed what if instead I protected my little energy bubble. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yes 

Erin Marcus: by not engaging By getting involved locally By changing my world By not feeding the machine, by using the things that you're talking about, and it ain't easy it, you are up against neuroscience, you are up against the, right?

Joseph Lombardi: In the food, in the, television, spelling, they're literally in broad daylight saying what they're doing, they're, TV programming what program am I watching? It's, it, literally it's in our normal vocabulary. The average American doesn't realize that, that their biggest goal is the light in God that's in you.

Joseph Lombardi: Not to get all ooh. 

Erin Marcus: Oh, I'm way woo. 

Joseph Lombardi: I was gambling. I was drinking. I was smoking. And I quit a lot of that stuff. And man, I shed all these demons. And my life, my marriage, my relationship with my children, my business, everything just boomed. I'm on all the DraftKings commercials nationwide.

Joseph Lombardi: I'm Joe L you can see me on TV like every day. And that's because I was one of their biggest gamblers, right? So you can imagine how much money that I donated. I could have taken those dollars, I could have helped people, I could have helped my business, I could have hired a business, I could have hired, so that's what I've been doing.

Joseph Lombardi: I've been growing my business nationally. I was going to ask 

Erin Marcus: you, what was the catalyst for deciding to walk this path instead of, because with your knowledge, you could be making so much money in the traditional financial services world, and it'd probably be easier. 

Joseph Lombardi: Way easier. Yeah, I already do over seven figures life is great.

Joseph Lombardi: But it come, it came down to a wake up call. Like I gained a lot of weight. I used to have a six pack. I lost what was I, my marriage wasn't doing so good, there's all these things that were happening negatively and I said what's the main cause?

Joseph Lombardi: And it was. It was these demons, like the gambling demon, the gluttony demon the wanting more. It's disassociated. 

Erin Marcus: It's disassociated. It's how can I soothe the anxiety, the fear, the worry, the story instead of just feeling. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah. When I can tell you, cause I'm on day 109 having gambled which is something that I just, you know, you just shred it.

Joseph Lombardi: And it, it feels empowering. And I feel like I'm filled with more light. I feel like God has chosen me. I'm doing the right thing. I have, I'm helping a lot of agents across the country. I'm helping a lot of people, like I said, I'm five star rated on Google aid plus on the better business Bureau, zero complaints.

Joseph Lombardi: And I'm dealing with billions of dollars of protection role. I'm dealing with people's life savings. I'm doing the right thing. And when I'm not led by having dollar as my God or by cost of replacing that dollar with Jesus and God, it totally, or Yeshua, who's his real name. And that's just what has changed my life completely.

Joseph Lombardi: And it's being awake to what's going on. It's being conscious of my decisions. Feeling in control, right? Because lack of control is anxiety. Yes. When people don't have that lack of control, they're eating Burger King and McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts and large iced coffee. Believe me, I've been there.

Joseph Lombardi: Sounds very specific, 

Erin Marcus: right? 

Joseph Lombardi: And you've done all, and you're like, what the heck am I doing to myself? What am I doing? And I, 

Erin Marcus: And I congratulate you for, you figured it out a decade earlier than I did. And here's the thing. I'm not an organized religion person. No, me neither. 

Erin Marcus: You can pick, right? Whether it's Jesus for you, whether it's God for you, whether it's the universe for you, whether it's spirituality. For me, my version is Mother Nature. Yeah. My version is Mother Nature. That's where I am completely grounded, completely connected, completely one. 

Joseph Lombardi: One. 

Erin Marcus: And so don't get hung up on what you call it.

Erin Marcus: Yeah, because God is connected. It's this idea of going in instead of out. 

Joseph Lombardi: And it doesn't matter Buddhist, as long as you have a higher power, you realize you didn't create yourself. So if I didn't create myself, that means there has to be a higher being that did. I didn't make these walls. I don't make this illusion.

Joseph Lombardi: I didn't create an eyeball. I didn't, so if I know that, I think we're here on, on this earth very simply is to elevate our soul from, because if we're thinking about it, we're all God's children. And I do believe that beyond a reasonable doubt. So if we're God's children, what did children grow up to be?

Joseph Lombardi: Adults. That's what children do. What if we're God's children? We all grow up to be gods. So it's if you understand that, I think the ultra wealthy do understand that. And I do believe that if they let us grow, then we are a threat to them because we all are equal, by the way. And let's say there's levels of, the way I look at it, it's like third grade, right?

Joseph Lombardi: If you do really good in third grade, what do you get to do? Go to fourth grade. If you do okay in third grade, but you don't really do much, what do you do? You study. Great Purgatory or Reincarnation. What happens if you do really badly, bad things? Then you go to second grade, they demote you.

Joseph Lombardi: I think that's what our souls do. I think our souls grow up, our souls grow down, our souls stay the same. And it has to do with learning and understanding and being awake. And I hate the great awakening and you're woke. But it really comes down to like just being present. To your reality and your decisions and understanding that I am not the most important thing in this world.

Joseph Lombardi: God made me as part of and when you take the selfishness and the narcissistic out of your And the 

Erin Marcus: fear. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah, exactly. 

Erin Marcus: If you go back to even the Hawkins scale what's the easiest way to control people? Keep them in fear. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah. That's the wolf and the sheep.

Joseph Lombardi: How does one wolf control a hundred sheep? 

Erin Marcus: Keep them in the, keep them in the fear. Keep them in the fear. So it's shedding that. And it's not. And the other thing, and just your energy coming through, it's not about being angry about any of it. 

Joseph Lombardi: No. It's. 

Erin Marcus: It's releasing. It's not about holding on to the anger about any of it.

Joseph Lombardi: No, we're not perfect. We make mistakes, we sin. And if you spend all your time focusing on sinning and what I did wrong and I should have, and that's called living in the past and that's depression. And if you spend all your time saying, Oh, I'm going to lose 50 pounds and I'm going to be a millionaire and I'm going to do that's living in the future.

Joseph Lombardi: That's anxiety. So what you need to do is understand where you are, right? A dream is in your head. A goal is written down. So don't have dreams, have goals, take those dreams and turn them into goals. Like I did, how am I going to grow my business? How am I going to be a better husband? How am I going to be a better father?

Joseph Lombardi: How am I going to help people? Am I walking in God's energy? 

Erin Marcus: How do you become the highest version of you that you can? And one of the things you said earlier that I totally agree with, like you can have a goal, but if you are chasing money, It will, I have gotten myself into more problems chasing money as opposed to achieving a goal or living in intention.

Erin Marcus: I 

Joseph Lombardi: can't begin to tell you the blessings that have been opened up in my life when I started shedding demons. Perfect example, I was one of the top estate attorneys in the country, here in Connecticut. He gave me a referral, right? It was a huge referral. Millions and millions and millions of dollars were rolling over.

Joseph Lombardi: I made more money than people can fathom. I didn't have to give him his cut. I verbally said I would, but there's nothing in writing, right? So I could have walked away with six figures and said, but at the end of the day, I did what I said I was going to do. My word is my bond.

Joseph Lombardi: And guess what happened? I got six more of almost the same identical opportunities with the state planning. I like trust second policies, people trying to save millions, tens of millions of dollars in state taxes because they're reducing the tax code next year. I've been doing the right thing. I can't tell you the blessing, the karmatic energy, everything's a rebound.

Joseph Lombardi: You give negative energy out, it comes back to you tenfold. You give positive energy out, it comes back to you tenfold. 

Erin Marcus: The other thing that I like about what you're talking about, and it's a really good thing to land on, is you work in the world of money. So many people who want to embrace a higher power will also try to tell you that money is bad.

Erin Marcus: And that's not it. 

Joseph Lombardi: No, 

Erin Marcus: like you are working squarely in the financial world. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah. 

Erin Marcus: Helping as many people as you can make as much money as they can. And while doing that, embracing Higher power. Best self. Be of service. These things go together very nicely. They are not mutually exclusive.

Joseph Lombardi: No it, I've been in this industry for over two decades. And I've worked in Wall Street, and I've seen the Wolf of Wall Street movie, the drugs, the barrels, the, I've seen that side of it. How they talk about people and it's really bad. And I didn't want to be a part of that, that, that world, there's clubs I could have joined cause I'm, I go to the white house.

Joseph Lombardi: I'm part of the ALU. I talked to congressmen. There's things that you could do that. I just, I, my number one goal is the safety and growth of my children. Making sure that they, they are happy, healthy. My Children have all the same issues. Everyone else says ADHD hyperactivity. That's just all the red dyes and all the food that our diets all poison on purpose.

Joseph Lombardi: They're poisoning the water. You gotta there's always trying to find ways to make the best of it. There's never going to be a perfect world unless you're God or if you're in heaven, if you're lucky to hit that level, which I think is way higher than where we are now. And we're always going to struggle and it's trying to do decisions, right?

Joseph Lombardi: Is finance everything? No, but if you have your money straight, your life is so much easier. 

Erin Marcus: What is that phrase? Money isn't everything, but money touches everything. 

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah. And I, the way that money doesn't make you happy, but it solves problems, which makes you happy. So I like. That's, I, my wife needed a truck.

Joseph Lombardi: I bought her a brand new Escalade. That was cool. I bought it in cash. I never thought I could do that. Like why me? I, my parents divorced at four. I lived in an attic. I lived in no running water. My mom wanted an abortion. She didn't want me, my dad was working construction. He was an alcoholic, like I came through this crazy life that I should not be like, I should not be at the level that I am at now.

Joseph Lombardi: But you know what? When I was younger, I always said, I'm going to be successful. I'm going to help people. I'm going to be the best financial planner there is. I'm going to make a ton of money. I'm going to do all these things. And what happens is you speak it into existence. Speak it into existence. And when you speak it into existence, some people look at that as lying.

Joseph Lombardi: I'm here. I'm new in the financial industry 20 years. And I'm like, I'm one of the best financial advisors. I've maybe had six months under my belt. And that's lying. You're a liar. It's no I'm training my subconscious mind that is telling me to beat my heart right now and breathe and have my lungs expand and have blood flow through my body.

Joseph Lombardi: I'm not thinking about any of that stuff. Something is, that's my subconscious. So you train your subconscious mind that you are the best, you are good, you are worthy, that, whatever happened in the past doesn't define your future. You tell yourself these things on a daily basis and man you're almost like, it's almost like a cheat code.

Joseph Lombardi: where you're training. It really is. And all these people that say, Oh, I wish I could, I can't. I don't want to sound corny. I know I got three kids. But it's like the little engine that could. If you say you can't, you won't. If you say you can, you will. Either way, you're right. And if you train yourself that you can, and again, I'm not here saying that I'm like the richest person, but I have a great freaking life.

Joseph Lombardi: And it is very comfortable. I have everything I need, everything that I want. My kids have everything they need. No, they're not spoiled. But also, 

Erin Marcus: regardless of the money, it's the, you mentioned before, it's the control over your own life. I call it be in charge. I want, I don't need all the money in the world.

Erin Marcus: I need to be in charge of my life. That empowerment, that freedom, that's the driving force. 

Joseph Lombardi: I, I have a nine year old daughter. She won regionals for New England. We had to go to nationals in New Jersey. I'm in Connecticut. Do you know how much it costs for a hotel room at nationals where everyone's flying in?

Joseph Lombardi: The room alone was 10, 000 just for the room, let alone the entry fee, the dresses, the 20, 000 a year in dance. I spent, I'm able to give that to my daughter, which builds her self confidence, makes her feel good about it. She's on stage. If I showed you pictures of my, you would be like, are you kidding me?

Joseph Lombardi: It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. She's nine to donate one ear and she's winning and she's amazing. It's like she was born 

Erin Marcus: for it. It's 

Joseph Lombardi: It's like I'm able to provide that for my daughter. And you know how awesome that feels as her father to know that I'm able to give that to her, whether she does it and she's not going to be on Broadway or I'm not saying that, but just the self confidence she's getting.

Joseph Lombardi: Oh, it'll serve her for 

Erin Marcus: her whole life. 

Joseph Lombardi: And doing that as a parent, which my children are the most important thing in my world, I would die for them in a second to have their safety but when you understand that it's 

Erin Marcus: it changes your decisions. 

Joseph Lombardi: It does. I'm not, when you, again, not being selfish, not hoarding the money, spending it on things that would make your family happy your instant quality of life better, driving a nice safe vehicle, driving, living in a nice safe neighborhood, having a yard for my children, having a pool when it's hot out, those are the cool things that you're able to do. I'll be 40 in, two weeks. And when knowing that I was able to accomplish this all because when I was young came from nothing that I said, I'm going to do this.

Joseph Lombardi: Yeah. And when you have that, and what robs most of these children from success is they don't know what they want to do. 

Erin Marcus: Most children, most adults I talk to don't know what they want. 

Joseph Lombardi: If you don't know what you want to do. There's no way to build it. 

Erin Marcus: if you don't make decisions for you, people who are not vested in you get to make those decisions. And it doesn't make those people wrong or bad. It just makes them have different priorities than you. We don't have to make them bad, but doctors, lawyers, the government, whatever, they're going to get to make your decision, the boss, whatever.

Erin Marcus: They're going to make your decisions for you if you don't make them for you. 

Joseph Lombardi: If you don't build your own dreams, you're going to help somebody else build their dreams. 

Erin Marcus: And 

Joseph Lombardi: that's what made me open my own company, because I realized I was helping all, I was taking my labor and all these people that I was making a ton of money, they were taking half on top of the government taking half.

Joseph Lombardi: So I was like, I'm getting a quarter. Math 

Erin Marcus: is not making sense. 

Joseph Lombardi: So like me, cause Steve Harvey has, whatever you think about him, has a really good little two minute video on We're all on the rock, and we all have our wings out, and there's people that just stay on the rock till they die and they never got to fly, and they never got to take the risk, and get the self, on top of Maslow's Heartache, 

Erin Marcus: self actualization. Self 

Joseph Lombardi: accusation. 

Erin Marcus: Right. 

Joseph Lombardi: Feeling good about yourself. It feels great. 

Erin Marcus: you're never gonna look at that if you can't take care of your basic needs. You don't get to move up the pyramid if you don't take care of your basic needs of safety and food and health.

Joseph Lombardi: 100 percent and that just comes to working their butt off. I've been doing this 20 years but I wasn't making the money I was out, not to levelize, I was not nowhere near as smart as I was. I was cold calling every Monday for four hours, every Thursday for four hours, every Saturday morning for four hours, getting hung up on.

Joseph Lombardi: Getting people that mess with you, it's 

Erin Marcus: perseverance, it's awareness, it's a lot of things. And I hate to cut you off because we could go on forever, we'll have to do that too. If people want to continue this conversation with you, how is the, what is the best way, we'll make sure all your links are in the notes, but what's the best way for them to find you?

Joseph Lombardi: First of all, Erin, I want to let you know I'm offering all your listeners all three of my books at no charge. Absolutely free. There's a better way than a 401k long term. I love that. That's a great case. And being your own bank, right? Getting out of the government banks and 401ks. And so all those, all you have to do is write an email to Joe, my first name, J O E at iron, like the metal Hawk, like the bird financial Joe and iron Hawk financial.

Joseph Lombardi: com and just post free books and just let me know you heard me on the Aaron Marcus show. And I'll send you those books absolutely free. I'll send you the articles I've been featured in international business times, this insane market insider, the two Forbes articles on my strategy when written by a certified financial planner or by a certified public accountant I'll send you all those absolutely free.

Joseph Lombardi: And you do your own due diligence. You won't be on any type of call list. I won't bother you I mean my calendar will be in the link if you want to book directly so that's if you just want the information maybe you're not ready To sit down with somebody like me yet. If you are ready to sit down with me, you can go to www.

Joseph Lombardi: ironhawkfinancial. com. And there's a contact us button on the top, right? You just fill out your name, your address, your name, your email address, and your phone number. And I'll reach out to you personally. I'll send you my Calendly link. We'll set a time to get together. It's absolutely free. Whether you decide to work with me or not, you'll never be charged anything.

Joseph Lombardi: You can always listen to me every Tuesday at 7 p. m.

Joseph Lombardi: Eastern money. Money Talk with Ironhawk on all platforms but yeah, if I can help you in any way, my goal is to help you. I, like I said, I'll never charge you a penny and I really appreciate the opportunity and man, I love your energy, Aaron. I love your spirit. I really enjoyed this a lot and I really appreciate you allowing me to come on your platform.

Erin Marcus: Thank you so much. I love real conversations about what's going on. So thank you. And make sure again, all those links are in the show notes and you'll just be one click away from everybody. 

Joseph Lombardi: Thank you so much for having me on. I can't tell you how much fun I had.